The Solid Truth about Matter

by Mark Weakland, Bernice Lum (Illustrator)

Overview

What’s the matter? Everything’s the matter!! Get it? If you don’t get this joke, you need this book! It’ll teach you everything you need to know about what makes up your body, the world, and the universe. The answers will matter to you!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429693028
Publisher:	Capstone
Publication date:	07/01/2012
Series:	LOL Physical Science Series
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	IG640L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

About the Author

Mark Weakland wears many hats. As an author, he's written books for teachers, including Super Core!: Turbocharging Your Basal Reading Program with More Reading, Writing, and Word Work, published by the International Reading Association. His book topics for children include sports, bacteria, comets, and poetry. Mark's also a reading specialist. He teaches kindergarten children, third graders, parents, and teachers. As a musician and songwriter, Mark sings, plays percussion, and strums the guitar. Many of his songs, including "I Sure Love Pancakes" and "The Dooflicky Machine," have won national awards and contests. Mark lives in Western Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Suuuuuper Matter! 4

1 Rockin' Matter 6

2 Solids and Liquids and Gases! Oh, My! 14

3 Mixin' in the Kitchen 22

Glossary 30

Read More 31

Internet Sites 31

Index 32

Editorial Reviews

This book uses humor in both text and pictures to teach the reader basic chemistry concepts. The reference aids, bold headings, captions and diagrams make the book a good reference and teaching tool. The fun text and pictures make it attractive to the child who is just interested in science. A good addition and update to the 500s.

Ohio SWON Library Consortium

This is a short book that would be entertaining for the targeted audience of third through sixth grades. It has lots of illustrations and funny captions, which do a good job of elaborating on the science information being presented and making it reader relevant. The short length of the book (32 pages including all the afterword materials like index, glossary, Internet sites, etc) makes it ideal for students who have short attention spans. The presentation does not talk down to students but uses language and humor to entice the reader to continue to read. Consequently they are being introduced to some useful scientific concepts which they will study in depth later in their school careers.

NSTA Science & Children

Books in the LOL Physical Science series are full of cartoons, jokes and funny asides. That doesn’t mean the science is less than serious, however. The concepts are there, the vocabulary is there, and the explanations are clear. This book is perfectly tailored for reluctant readers. . . .The Solid Truth about Matter is a good, solid book to have on hand for science units.

Wrapped In Foil blog

Gr 5–8—This series operates on the premise that the way to get children interested in science is to pepper the text with feeble bathroom jokes and other lame attempts at humor. None of the titles is immune. It is difficult to determine what "Get your mind out of the toilet. This is isn't about poop." does to help explain Newton's second law of motion, or why the section in Magnetism titled "Gotta Go" needs "You thought about pee, didn't you?" as an aside. While some of the cartoon illustrations, photos, and diagrams do help clarify the texts, others are totally pointless. For example, a caption for a photo of a strange-looking machine raising a car in Forces reads: "We really have no idea what this picture is about. It's just really cool, so we added it here." All of the information presented is valid, but the approach is condescending.

School Library Journal